Microsoft teams up with Clover Wireless to buy back your old iPhones, iPads and more

Last week we told you guys about a promotion going on at Microsoft Stores across the nation. Take your old, unwanted, outdated iPad and trade it in for at least a $200 gift card at the Microsoft Store. The catch was that it had to be an iPad 2 or newer and you needed to physically do it at a Microsoft Store near you. Those restrictions have been lifted in a new buyback program from Microsoft. Read on for the details.

Microsoft has teamed up with Clover Wireless to allow users to trade-in their old devices. You can drop off your iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android device and get up to $350 back towards a new Microsoft product, like a Surface Pro.

Here’s how it works. You enter in the details of the device you want to trade in. Then you’re given a value, something up to $350. Then you submit proof-of-purchase for a Microsoft device. Think Windows Phone, Surface, etc. Do that within 30 days of shipping your old device and you’ll receive a prepaid Visa card from Microsoft/Clover.

It’s not a bad program if you’re planning on buying some new hardware in the near future and have old gear to dump.

Family of 6 and I cannot tell you how many smart devices we have laying around, like coins stuck between couch cushions. We've practically been giving them away to relatives. It's too much of a hassle to Craigslist or eBay them, so smart move by them and wished it was announced earlier.

They should do this with their own products as well...say, Windows Phone 7 devices and first generation Surface RT devices...but then again, that would be asking too much of them. They're just obcessed with the competition and not so much with making their own consumers happy.

^
This! They care more about IOS and android. Take Skype for example, it has more features, like file sharing, and windows phone doesn't have it. It just recently got video messaging, which is stupid, as it should've came out the same time or before IOS and android.

What the hell are you saying? You saying Microsoft has every feature enabled and has it fully integrated? Yeah, didn't think so. I honestly prefer Skype on my Nexus 4 than my 920. And Microsoft makes the apps! So sad.

It's baked into windows 8.1, I'm just taking that and extending it to windows phone 8.1.
I think I read it posted here somewhere that it's quite possible that's what will happen. Anyways even then it just makes sense for Microsoft to do that. It would be normal part of the OS, like taking regular phone calls.
I just wish they somehow keep the stand alone version around because I use a different account for my phone than skype usage. IM+ doesn't have proper support for Skype/MSN accounts, you don't see both contacts reliably depending now how the user did their account merge.

To be fair, I have found that OneNote and SkyDrive on WP is vastly superior to their Android counterparts. At least the versions found on my mother's Android.

Also, I am absolutely baffled that people see Apple as having a stroke of genius with the Mac vs. PC commercial, which focused on trash talking the competition, but it's considered a weakness whenever someone else does it.